Philosophy of Religion

The Buddha and His Dhamma

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B.R. Ambedkar

1956

The Buddha and His Dhamma is Ambedkar's reinterpretation of the life of the Buddha and the teachings of Buddhism, completed shortly before his death and published posthumously in 1957. Ambedkar did not approach Buddhism as a scholar of religion but as a liberation theologian seeking a rational, egalitarian alternative to the caste-saturated Hinduism he had rejected. He reread the Pali canon selectively and creatively, bracketing metaphysical elements (karma as cosmic law, rebirth, nirvana as individual extinction) and foregrounding Buddhism's social and ethical core: the rejection of hereditary hierarchy, the centrality of compassion, the emphasis on self-transformation through right action. The result is Navayana — "the new vehicle" — a Buddhism reconstructed for the modern Dalit: this-worldly, democratic, and rooted in the dignity of the oppressed. Ambedkar converted to Buddhism in a public ceremony six weeks before his death, together with approximately half a million followers. The book remains the foundational text of the Dalit Buddhist movement.